June 5, 2007

• Warning: Controversial – Disclaimer: Theoretical

  What do all the following people have in common?

  Alexander the Great, Boadicea Queen of the Iceni, Billy the Kid, Malcolm X, Charlemagne, Chrisopher Columbus, Eric the Red, Judas Iscarlot, George Washington, Kings William the Conqueror, Henry II and VIII and Queens Elizabeth I and Victoria of England, Ann Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, Galileo, John D. Rockefeller, Lizzie Borden, General George A. Custer, Rurik the Viking who founded Russia, King David of Israel who slew Goliath, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, Rupert Brooke, Lord Byron, Ken Kesey, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Tom Robbins, J. K. Rowling, Jean-Paul Sartre, William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Harold “Red” Grange, Rod Laver, Sarah Bernhardt, Dame Ellen Terry, Henri Matisse, Tiziano “Titian” Vecellio, Vincent van Gogh, Walter Reuther, Margaret Sanger, George Bernard Shaw, Svetlana Stalin, Martin Van Buren, Leif Ericson, Mark Twain, Maureen O’Hara, Woody Allen, Clara Bow, Bette Davis, Jason Flemyng, Marilu Henner, Rupert Grint, Philip Semour Hoffman, Ron Howard, Nicole Kidman, Marilyn Monroe, Chuck Norris, Robert Redford, Red Skelton, Spencer Tracy, Eric Stoltz, Napoleon Bonaparte, Miles Standish, Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, Vladimir Lenin, Winston Churchill, Andrew Wiles (mathematician who solved Fermat’s Last Theorem), Roman Emperor Nero, Florence Nightingale, Rob Roy Chief of Clan Gregor, Salome daughter of King Herod, Oliver Cromwell, Lazarus Long and his mother Maureen Johnson, Alfred E. Neuman, Nell Gwynne, Tin Tin, Brenda Starr, Jessica Rabbit, Ronald McDonald, the Weasleys, and me

  HINT:

  

  This is by no means an exhaustive list.  I just skimmed the surface.  I left out a couple of legendary redheads, Lucille Ball and Shirley Maclaine, because they have admitted to dyeing their hair.  I have also included one true-born redhead who became a legendary bottle blonde, Marilyn Monroe.  Additionally Joshua ben Joseph, AKA “Jesus” is, “said to have had deep burgundy hair the color of wine.”  The list above suggests (but certainly doesn’t prove) a generalization I have heard expressed many times:  that as the world’s smallest ethnic minority, we have been disproportionately represented among the creme de la creme of the famous, infamous, intelligent, powerful and creative elites.

  One of many common redheaded stereotypes relates to our intelligence.  From my own experience, I can supply one anecdote.  While I was a member of Mensa, before they raised the annual dues and squeezed me out, our little local group had about a dozen active members.  Redheads outnumbered all the other hair colors two to one, if we counted our bald LocSec, who was a former redhead.  The sample was too small for statistical significance.   Mensa is not such a sterling example of really high intelligence, either.  They let in the top two percent, one person out of fifty.  At least three other egghead clubs are more exclusive.  The most exclusive of them rejected me on the basis of their own IQ test, which showed that there are about three million people on this planet who might do better on that test than I did.

  

  I have also heard us characterized as exceptionally outspoken and sarcastic.  I don’t know where anyone got such an outrageous idea.  But, seriously, all the redheads I have known have been somewhat in-your-face-type people.  One of the more widespread and persistent stereotypes about us involves our legendary violent tempers and short fuses. Through the mellowing that comes with time, and a lot of deliberate personal evolution, I have managed to lengthen my fuse a bit.   It takes a lot of provocation to set me off now, relative to how short-tempered I used to be, but once I snap, nobody, least of all I, can predict where the mayhem will end.

  

  Until recently, we didn’t have scientific statistical or genetic evidence to confirm or refute the stereotypes.  Now, some of those things I have been hearing all my life, such as that it takes more anesthetic to knock us out for surgery, we tend to bleed more freely, clot slowly, have high pain thresholds, more than our share of sinus infections, skin disorders, asthma and chemical sensitivities, for example, have been demonstrated scientifically.  Many of us seem to have extraordinary immune systems and powers of self-healing, and also a tendency toward auto-immune disorders, which would seem to be consistent with an overactive immune system.

  There is some overlap between that list of physical anomalies common to redheads and the list of attributes commonly ascribed to people known as Starseed, the descendants of extraterrestrial visitors.  I stirred up a furor in the forum at the Realm of Redheads a few years ago when I posted the Starseed questionnaire and asked my fellow redheads how they scored on it.  One faction took the quiz and reported high scores.  Another faction bristled at the very suggestion that they might have ET roots.  I ascribe that latter reaction, charitably, to defective cultural/religious programming, and not to a lack of native intelligence.

  

  No discussion of redhead stereotypes and idiosyncrasies would be complete without a mention of our legendary sexuality.  Discussion threads in the Realm forums indicate that we are a sexy bunch in the aggregate.  My childhood, youth, and adulthood have exemplified that stereotype.  I matured early, masturbated frequently from a young age, and until menopause was likely to place sexual activity and gratification ahead of most other priorities, right after air.  Of all the lovers I have had throughout my sex-obsessed lifetime, the ones who were most sex-obsessed were the ones with red hair.  They were not all redheads.  Some had red beards, red (or orange) pubic hair or chest hair, along with blond or brown hair on their heads.

  This brings me to the subject of honorary redheads, and redhead fans or lovers.  Sometimes the recessive redhead gene skips a few generations in a family, and suddenly there’s a red-haired offspring or a whole brood of them with parents of other hair colors, but with many of the stereotypical redhead traits.  Some of my own offspring have the traits but not the hair.  We call them honorary or familial redheads.  Redhead fans or redhead lovers are, of course, people who have an especially keen appreciation for our fine qualities, usually just the sexy part.

  One of my husbands was an admitted redhead lover.  I was his third red-haired wife. He had done a considerable amount of observation and study of our breed, and he had an alternate theory to the Starseed one, to account for our idiosyncrasies, although it does not necessarily preclude the ET roots.  Back before the recent genetic findings, we discussed his theory with our red-haired physician, who agreed that it was a plausible explanation.  Here it goes (again, for those of you who read a previous post on this topic):

  Our legendary braininess, combativeness, and sexiness can be accounted for by simple natural selection as a result of our physical weaknesses.  Being oversensitive to sunlight, allergic to many things in the natural environment, frequently ill and subject to infections at a higher rate than that of our non-red-haired neighbors, we probably experienced a higher death rate and shorter life expectancy.  Individuals who managed to pass along their DNA were  likely to have been those who bred at an early age and/or had the intelligence and aggressiveness to survive long enough to produce offspring.  The dull-witted, easy-going, sexually cool redheads were eliminated long ago.  We who are left are the superior survivors of an inferior breed.

  As I said, that’s a theory.  Another theory is that we’re the progeny of some brainy, sexy and warlike aliens from a planet with a thicker atmosphere or a sun with less UV radiation.  Our allergies, sinus trouble and such could be the result of our ancestors having evolved in a completely different ecosystem.  I don’t think those two theories are necessarily mutually exclusive.

  I don’t know why redheads are so different, but I am convinced that we are.  As a child, I hated all the unwelcome attention I got on account of my hair and resented the stereotypes even as my behavior typified them all.  After all these years, I wouldn’t know how to be anything but a redhead, but I had better start learning, because my hair color is fading toward something in the peachy pink range, just like my great grandmother’s did.

  

  

  • 10:42 pm
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